"I was born April 2, 19--. My father was and is a government official; he had a higher education. My mother had somewhat less education, corresponding to a little more than your U.S. highschools. I have only one sister, younger and rather different from me, conventional and neurotic. But starting from my birth, my childhood was rather happy. I was what my mother calls 'such a mild child.' What influenced me most? All the classical children's books, books on animals, Charles Dickens (in David Copperfield you will find some of me), historical novels, Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, traveler books, books for adults — never many of the so-called 'books for boys.' Biographies of the great persons in history and literature soon fascinated me, such books as 'When the Great Ones Were Little Ones.' History became my main interest, but from twelve to sixteen it was especially also chemistry, physics, astronomy, biology, zoology, geography, and languages which interested me. Botany, arithmetic and mathematics have never fascinated me, though it seems I have an ability for mathematics.

"From seventeen to twenty it was especially history and languages — Latin, French, then German and ancient Greek which occupied me. From then onwards, history (especially the Middle Ages), and Indian philosophy and art, literature and poetry. (I have a more or less knowledge of fourteen languages, can talk three and a half fluently, read ten.) The great philosophers who influenced me are: Spinoza (the Jewish-Dutch philosopher), Kant, Socrates, Plato, Eckhart, Ruysbroech, Suso, Bruno, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Nietzsche, Høffding, Kierkegaard, Shankara, Ramanuja, Lao-tse, Chuang-tse. In literature: Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Goethe, Shelley, Casanova, Voltaire, Rousseau. In history: Louis Quatorze, Napoleon, Frederick le Grand, Frederick William 1, Hitler, Alexander, Caesar, Augustus, Claudius, Hadrian, Charlemagne, etc., etc."

Her Ladyship was frowning, "Your only influences came from books?"

Then I must absolutely tell her (so comical) about a film — The Great Dictator (Chaplin) — that had very much importance in my life and also in the lives of several of my school-comrades via me and explains the "military" side of my character. I have seen the film approximately ten times and — how funny — Chaplin should know it! — the effect on us became quite the opposite of the intended one.

Deborah had seen the film, only years before, and remembered very little. "It is a parody," I reminded her, "of Hitler and Mussolini. So funny. After all, we thought, dictatorship is not so bad! The film begins: Spring 1918. Tomania (Deutschland-Germania) is in a serious state after four years of war. But the army still fights — a last effort, and then Sieg! (victory). Among the weapons which should bring 'Der Endsieg’ was the enormous, long-reaching cannon, Dicke Bertha (Bertha Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach) which is bombarding Paris. The target is the Cathedral of Notre Dame, seventy-five kilometers away.

"Seventyfivethousandninehundredandninetyeight, ninetyseven — FIRE!!! With an enormous whistle the shell is rushing through the air towards the honourable target. The explosion, an enormous crash — and an old-fashioned wood-toilet is no more! Chaplin as a little Jewish private is also there. Later he is flying with Commander Schultze in an aeroplane which has turned over. Chaplin cannot understand that levitation is abolished and it is very difficult to drink a glass of water! Well, they crash in a mud-hole, the little Jew loses his memory and spends years in a hospital. In the meantime Aderhonoid (!) Hynkel (Hitler) has taken over power in Tomania, supported by his friends Field Marshal Herring (Goering), and Minister of Propaganda Garbitch (Goebbels). The dictator is seen driving up Siegesallee. Even the statues such as Rodin's Der Denker and Kampf der Liebe are doing Hynkel-salute. Field Marshal Herring shows some miraculous new weapons: a shot-proof waist-coat. Hynkel, the genius, has very little time, looks at his wristwatch, takes the revolver and shoots. The man is killed instantaneously. 'Not perfect,' says Hynkel, irritated over the waste of his time. Then there is a parachutist. 'Heil, Hynkel,' he says, jumps out of the window, and kills himself. They are following him with their eyes. 'Why are you wasting my time in that way?' Hynkel says reproachfully to Field Marshal Herring.

"Then the dictator of the neighboring country, Bacteria (Italia) Benzino Napolini (Mussolini) arrives. The train stops, then it starts again. All are falling, then are running up and down with the red carpet. 'Heil, Hynkie, my dictator-brother.' Everything is done to let Napolini feel he is number two, and everything fails. Hynkel sits at an enormous table. Benzino gets a fantastic low chair, but then he jumps up and sits on the table! The Ghetto, the Jews, the Stormtroopers, Sturmabteilungen (S.A.), Hynkel's double, the little Jew, etc., etc.

"You wouldn't believe it," I told Deborah, "the first schoolday after Christmas holidays (1947-48), after several of us had seen the picture, you could not recognize the school playground. There arose at once three rival empires with three emperors plus one democratic republic! There was I, making an incendiary speech, there the Sturmabteilungen had exercises (Kaisermanöver), there some rascals were tortured, there the democrats, about 50% of us, had parliament, and there the neutrals tried to keep peace. Also, two to three communists tried to make their cake.

"Then we tested grosser, dicker Otzenwaldus, our far-reaching cannon. Four ran in cortege as shells and threw themselves at full speed into the parliament meeting. Horror and trembling and then the battle started!"

I could see that Deborah's formerly unhappy face was full of amusement as she listened. I was about to continue when there came the sound of a key trying to open our door. A terrific nervousness gripped me. Were those thieves already beginning their little game? Immediately I jumped up and demanded who was there. A mumbling, some words of apology. A German guest had mistaken the room for his.

"It must be those queers next door," said Deborah, getting off the bed. "I met them out on the reef. They invited us to share a taxi to Galle with them tomorrow evening. Do you want to? I'll tell them."

This sounded better than spending New Year's Eve with these dull hotel tourists. Deborah went out to tell them we would accept the invitation. I personally abhor the homosexual method of sexual satisfaction, and have never made use of it since 194- when I fell very much in love with a school comrade. But even so, have I really been homosexual? I can without lying say, knowing myself, never really. Our school was the old type, with boys and no girls. The story finished a year later. We were both too young to realize what it was. Later I read about it and was intelligent enough to realize that this was quite wrong and could only lead to misery. So I forced myself to think on girls, and by such a conscious act (it is really true, believe me) left it. Now the only thing remaining is that I like and have sympathy also with nice little boys. But for homosexual experiences of sexual intercourse, I now feel disgust with such things, though pity for the victims.

Deborah returned a moment later to tell me we would tomorrow after supper go to Galle. Then she returned to the terrace, taking up her writing pad and gazing out to sea. I realized with a feeling of overwhelming tenderness that I from now on would have to look very carefully after my American friend so that no harm would come to her at the hands of the British criminals. But I had no plan in mind about how to deal with them. Perhaps with one thousand rupees I could pay their hotel cook to put a little arsenic into their chicken-feet broth. A few drops every day over a certain period of time, or inhaled with the odours of a curry, and the results would be most interesting, though not for anyone’s eyes.

Had I only known, when thinking the above, what horrors did so soon await us, would I have been so light-hearted? Never. But I shall take first things first, relate one at a time.